Wordsworth and Godwin in “Frozen Regions”

Following G. W. F. Hegel, critics tend to dismiss William Wordsworth’s meditations on Stoicism in The Excursion as a harbinger of his growing apathy and political conservatism. For Wordsworth, however, the radical tenor of Stoicism in the 1790s made it more than a sign of acquiescence or indifference. By tracing key connections between The Excursion and Wordsworth’s early fascination with William Godwin’s attempt to “abstract the hopes of man / Out of his feelings,” this essay contends that the Stoic outlook Wordsworth found in Political Justice outlasted his various political commitments to shape his mature ethical sensibility.